


Friends Roughly Built Like Me

by raven_aorla



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, accident-prone science people being adorkable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony was used to SHIELD commandeering his resources by now, and when it was in the interest of keeping the world safe he was pretty chill about it. However, when he said it was fine for Natasha and Clint to use his Malibu home as a discreet meeting place with someone who lived in San Diego, he wasn't expecting a reluctant young roboticist/physicist with a wooden mask strapped to his face (or a lack thereof).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Avengers/SPG crossover. No romantic shipping, lots of friendship feels. Not my characters. And of course I'm writing this when I should be doing something else. It's all Peter Walter VI's fault.

"Since when does SHIELD kidnap people?" Tony asked Natasha even as he followed her into the elevator. "Fury said you and Clint needed to use the basement of my Malibu house to meet with someone who would be reluctant to talk anywhere public and this was the nearest secure area. He didn't say you guys were going to deposit him unconscious on a sofa."

"Mister Walter was being uncooperative. We have every expectation of returning him home unharmed," Natasha said, matter-of-fact. "Besides, he tried to sic a two-ton cat on us."

Tony couldn't decide between the various retorts he had to that before the doors opened and revealed Clint sitting with undisguised apprehension across from a sedated kid - couldn't be more than twenty-six or twenty-seven - with ruffled ginger hair, cargo shorts, canvas kicks, and a striped sweater-vest over a white button-up shirt. Oh, and this freaky-ass mask made of wood with a large keyhole instead of anything that resembled a face.

JARVIS announced, "I will repeat my warning that I gave to Agent Barton, sir. Energy readings suggest it would be unwise to remove the mask over the young man's face until further data is acquired concerning possible consequences."

"Great, now I'll be able to think of nothing else. Is that what you two want me here for? To find out how the reclusive heir of a family of accident-prone scientists supporting themselves on a combination of patents and the earnings of their own little robot rock band got into yet another accident? Seems more like Bruce's thing."

Clint picked up a cane propped against the sofa and examined it. "Well, you have the most supervillain experience out of all of us..."

"We don't have any proof Walter Robotics has done anything illegal per se. Dr. Banner picked up traces of radiation similar to the kind that came from Loki's staff and the Tesseract. He was afraid interacting with someone who had also been blasted with a mutagen might cause more problems than it solved so decided not to come."

"Blue matter doesn't work that way, I can assure you," said the kid, having woken up without anyone else noticing. "Am I in handcuffs?"

Tony was impressed by the disregard for the usual routine of where-am-I-what-do-you-want-from-me. "Black Widow's naughty that way. I'd like to reassure you that I'm not a big fan of torture and will try to at least Instagram it if these two get any ideas. Do you need help sitting up?"

"Yeah, thanks. You must be Tony Stark. Rabbit's got a crush on your suit but the Spine thinks War Machine's looks way better." He used Tony's arm as a brace on his way upright. Despite the mask appearing pretty solidly wood his voice was crystal clear.

"I'm sorry we had to resort to such measures, Mister Walter, but our research indicated that your estate was sufficiently hazardous to avoid spending any longer there than necessary," Natasha said. 

"Call me Peter Six or just Six, please, 'Mister Walter' makes me think of my dad. If you'd let me explain before that guy shot me with a hypodermic dart..."

"You set a gigantic cat on us," Clint protested.

"That's how my cat says hello. I only yelled 'Marshmallow!' because I was worried you might misunderstand, which given my luck is what happened anyway. If I have to stay in these handcuffs you should at least send a text for me to Michael Reed so he doesn't freak out and cancel the concert tonight. It's kind of mean to hold a handicapped person's cane out of their reach, by the way."

"For chrissake's just uncuff him. We're all Avengers and all the rooms in this house have excellent security. I'll cover any damages that results." Tony hated to admit it, but he could empathize all too well with being a wunderkind having to put up with government suspicion and hassling.

Moments later Peter Walter VI had sent a few texts - Natasha insisted on inspecting each one before it was sent - and had his cane across his lap, hands nervously running up and down the gnarled wood. "Your AI sounds pretty Turing, Mister Stark. Qwerty at best sounds like a troll from Homestuck, only somehow with even more l33tsp33k.

"Turing?" Clint asked.

"He means the measurement of how human an artificial intelligence seems. If you want to be called Six I want to be called Tony. Does that literally mean you are the sixth person in the family to be named Peter?"

"The sixth to be named Peter Alexander. Two and Three were twin brothers; the bots say that was really confusing but back then their sarcasm functions were far more rudimentary and they had a lot of respect for Colonel Peter A. Walter I, since they saw him as their father. I'm pretty sure Rabbit still visits his grave once a week. The others only go every few months. Aunt Wanda said I should get on producing Seven one of these days, or a Petra if a girl, but I said it's only going to happen now if I adopt. Um. Sorry, don't mean to babble. I haven't talked to anyone new in person except for two of the band members for over a year."

"Babbling is fine. It'd probably be quickest if you chose to babble about what we want to know. You want a drink?"

Six shook his head at Tony. "Thanks, but I don't like consuming things when anyone but the robots or the Walter Girls can see me. The robots don't find it upsetting because they do things like detach their own heads on a regular basis. And as far as I know nothing bothers the Walter Girls ever after their basic training. Kind of the point of the training really."

At this Natasha said, "Unfortunately one of our objectives in meeting -"

"Abducting." 

"Aggressively meeting?" Clint suggested.

Six actually laughed a little at that. "I didn't want to leave the Manor because I feel really self-conscious pretty much everywhere else, and also members of the family have been hurt before by people trying to copy our technology. But now that I know we're at Tony Stark's place I am willing to stay here and explain as much about Blue Matter as I am allowed to. The conditions are that I get to call my parents as often as I want, Dr. Banner comes here and he and Tony help me with one of my own projects that I lack the resources to do on my own at the Manor, and that on one day before I go home I get to go to the beach without everyone staring."

Goddammit, why was this kid making Tony want to give him a hug? "Sounds reasonable depending on what your project is."

"We'll have to ask Fury first," Natasha warned.

"It's looking right now like I'll never get my face back, or at least it's far enough beyond what is probable that I would rather focus my efforts elsewhere, but I have a hypothesis that as well as no longer being affected by any kind of harmful-to-humans radiation whatsoever - the data is statistically significant that this is the case - I may have stopped aging, and I want to test that." Six leaned back in his seat and Tony wondered what his expression would have been. "If so the robots will be happy, at least."


	2. Chapter 2

Fury agreed to Peter Walter VI's terms, on one condition: that he reveal his face over webcam. "We need to be able to ID you if necessary."

Six sighed. "How would you feel if everyone wanted to look under your eyepatch all the time?"

"I'm not saying I don't have any sympathy, son, but there are larger concerns at stake here."

"Fine." As the young man began fumbling with the straps that secured his mask, Tony discreetly used the phone in his pocket to send a silent command to JARVIS to take video and stills, not knowing when he'd get a chance to look again without spooking his guest.

Tony had seen plenty of weird shit after Afghanistan. This was enough to keep him from making any exclamations when Six showed what was behind his disguise, but not enough to keep him from inhaling sharply enough that he just knew both Six and Fury had heard it. Fury had a better poker face and said dryly, "I suppose cases of mistaken identity won't be an issue. All right, we'll swap out Black Widow and Hawkeye for Banner. He'll be there tomorrow, since we only have one jet designated for the Avengers and Homeland Security won't let us officially sanction Doctor Banner for commercial flight."

"I can't imagine why," Six said with a faint voice. "Are we done, Commander?"

"For now. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Walter. Stark, if you either traumatize him or team up with him to cause some sort of mayhem I have no compunctions against pursuing the security breaches you only think I don't know about because I've chosen not to consider them a priority."

"I can't speak for Mr. Stark, but the Walters have done our best to keep out of larger affairs since the Vietnam War," Six replied. "Now are we done?"

Tony went ahead and disconnected before Fury confirmed it. "I understand if you want to put your mask on right away, but I have to admit I'd really love to look at it from a better angle. You can take a peek at my arc reactor if you want. Fair's fair."

"I don't poke at things out of curiosity nearly as much as I did," Six said, but he turned in the chair a little so he was facing Tony. "But if you and Dr. Banner are going to be helping me figure out how I've been affected it doesn't make sense to keep covering it up. Don't touch. Weird things happen when anyone else touches it."

"What kind of weird?"

"I'm one of three humans living at the Manor currently who have been in some kind of Blue Matter accident. My dad doesn't have any eyes, though he can see fine. He mostly wears sunglasses. Norman Becile was in an explosion that killed others but instead gave him spikes on his back, a Picasso eye, and a hand with lobster claws instead of fingers. He's also a bit more...vague...than he used to be, or at least Dad says so, since this happened before I was born. Wanda makes him different oven mitts to suit the season and his moods. There's even a Christmas one with white flocking. I suppose I'm glad that I got this instead of his deal, since people just give me looks with the mask on - they'd scream and run if he left the Manor. He's great security, though."

"I can imagine," Tony said. He was glad Clint and Natasha had already departed for a hotel and quite possibly sex at levels of flexibility and stamina he was trying not to think about. He doubted Six would be willing to stray so far out of his comfort zone with other people around. It was probably even just as well that Pepper was caught up in important Stark Enterprises business. She'd be polite to Six's lack-of-face but it would be another reminder of how bizarre and dangerous Tony's life was these days, something he tried to let her push aside for time to time so her stress levels didn't go beyond the point of no return. 

Cause the face of the matter was that this guy didn't have a face, not in a euphemistic sense but in that he did. Not. Have. A. Face. He had a swirling blue vortex. At least it wasn't the kind of vortex that sucks things in, or at least that went out of its way to do so, and he wondered if anyone had tried finding out if it would absorb small objects. Like paperclips or something.

"Before you ask, biologically I function as though I have a perfectly normal face. I feel like it's there, though in the first few weeks it was the kind of tingly you get when your face thaws from being numb. If I shut my eyes I can picture it like it was. Someday I'll be all right with looking at my driver's license and photo albums again." Six sounded wistful and kept rearranging his hands in his lap like he didn't know what to do with them.

"Do you still have a license?" Tony imagined what would happen if he ever got pulled over.

"It's expired. I haven't figured out how to handle the DMV like this."

At this time JARVIS spoke up in the particular cadence and tone Tony had programmed him to use for subtle expression of possible, but uncertain, danger. "Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt but there are two individuals seeking entrance, quite emphatically in fact. They are capable of speech but do not register as organic life."

"Uh oh," Six said, grabbing his mask and limping so fast to the elevator Tony was worried he'd fall, though he'd try to catch the kid if that happened.

It turned out to be a tall, nervous young guy in ragged jeans, a hoodie, and gloves, partially supporting, partially restraining a flailing copper automaton. Tony remembered that JARVIS had said neither of them registered as organic life and wondered what was going on. The one that looked human had a large backpack slung over one shoulder, but it was in danger of slipping off in his apparent efforts to keep his companion from collapsing or possibly running amok and then collapsing. 

Six gripped the doorknob. "They're mine. Let them in. Please." Tony couldn't bring himself to question that, at least not right away, and directed JARVIS to unlock the door - at which point Six wrapped the obvious robot in a bear hug despite being slightly shorter. 

"Hey, hey, hey, which one are you?" the robot stammered, still twitching but calmer.

The other one heaved a sigh of relief. "At least that part of him is still working. I'm sorry to just turn up like this when your code just said to stand by in case of emergency, but we were setting up for the show at the water park when one of the barriers collapsed for reasons unknown and all of us got doused. Matt and Mr. Reed and Steve are fine but you know how Rabbit and Hatchworth -"

"Aren't waterproof," Six finished in a whisper. "Don't worry about coming here. This is an emergency. Tony, the Spine will fill you in, but I need access to one of your labs and whatever mechanical engineering things you can let me use right now. And either a table with straps or a long table and some rope or duct tape or something."

Dazed, Tony pulled the door shut before he could say anything. "Yeah, sure. To keep SHIELD off my back later I'll have to either be in the lab with you or watch you on camera. Fair warning."

"Is the Bbbbbb-ecile the boyss DelilahHatchywhere'sPappyI want..." It looked eerily similar to a human going through traumatic shock, but steam was hissing from the robot's cheek vents and Six held him close like one would a sobbing friend. 

"Hey, Rabbit, it's gonna be fine. I'm going to fix you, okay? You know you can trust me."

"I donwanna hurt."

"You're not going to hurt anyone. Show us where the lab I can use is, Tony? The Spine, I need you to help Rabbit walk. I won't be able to."

"The Spine" - where were these names coming from, seriously? - nodded and pulled Rabbit to his side. "If Mister Walter restrains you it's just to keep you from moving too much and messing up his work, okay? You're not in trouble and you're not a prisoner."

Rabbit took shaky steps to keep up with the rest of them. "I don't want to be tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-take-take-taken apaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaart." He seemed to have to break his own loops by conscious effort, which didn't fit with Tony's worldview at all.

"Not gonna happen." The Spine switched to a deeper tone, less like a litany of comfort and reassurances, and said, "I've got my regular clothes and both of our hats in my bag, Mister Walter." 

"Good thinking. We nearly there?"

"Here," Tony said, flinging open the door and gesturing for the lights to come on at maximum illumination.

Once they'd hurriedly secured Rabbit, Six and the Spine doing their best to soothe him and Tony holding back all his comments and quips for later, the Spine willingly accompanied Tony to the hallway. Tony told JARVIS to observe the guests for now and let him know if his attention was needed immediately. He could check his Stark Phone for the video feed when he wished but he wanted explanations first.

The Spine preempted his first question and held up a hand. "In a moment. I really need some water and some rubbing alcohol - turpentine will do as well - and paper towels."

This was how Tony ended up handing paper towels to the Spine in one of the first-floor bathrooms as the robot scrubbed heavy makeup from his face, revealing a silver metallic surface underneath. The gloves had been covering up similarly shiny hands. "Rabbit right now only sometimes recognizes me with my disguise on, but I had to wear this to drive here without getting in trouble. I don't officially have a license but the Walters forged one for me just in case. I can drive most vehicles but the government isn't enthused about letting me do so when it's not in their interest."

Tony filed that away for later. "What's going on with Rabbit? How does being soaked mess him up so badly?"

"It wasn't just the water but also the force of the wave crashing down on us. I was extensively refurbished in 1958 for a World's Fair exhibition so am sturdier than the others. Rabbit is also the oldest and most run-down because he keeps refusing maintenance until we have to drag him. Once in a long while he has a temporal malfunction, though this is the worst one yet, because instead of him thinking it's a specific time in the past he keeps slipping back and forth through different parts of his life. Hatchworth just had some mechanical damage and Mr. Reed could cope with that fine, but when Rabbit's this upset he'll only trust a Walter."

"How does he know Six is a Walter if he's having issues keeping his own chronology straight?" Tony couldn't help but be fascinated how as the Spine shed his pretense of humanity his movements were becoming more and more jerky and mechanical. 

"We're not sure how Rabbit does it, but we think it's because for the first three days since he was powered on he only had contact with Colonel Peter Walter I and a rabbit that was being used as a test subject for unrelated reasons. All we know for sure is that he always knows a Walter, alive or dead, whether he can see their face or not. It probably is part of why he spends hours every week hanging out in the cemetery where the past generations are buried. Though he says he likes feeding the birds."

An idle factoid about rubbing alcohol being bad for the skin floated up in Tony's brain from God knows where, but he supposed that wouldn't be a problem for the Spine. His peripheral awareness of the robot band - mostly as something he thought was kind of cool as a kid before he moved onto his own creations - had hinted at them having very sophisticated emoting abilities, but it was hard enough remembering JARVIS wasn't alive, let alone think of the Spine as anything other than a person. Six certainly was treating both him and Rabbit as people.

"Is there a reason Rabbit resists maintenance?" 

The Spine took a long drink of water before answering. Almost all the makeup was gone by now. "His core was stolen by rivals to the Walters several decades ago, and in an effort to retrieve it there was an explosion in which one Walter and one Walter-in-law died instantly, and another developed health complications that led to his demise years later."

"Surely a weird guilt-complex could be fixed with some minor debugging..."

Once the Spine was not even attempting to seem human he could go into an instant, startling mode of complete stillness. "Mr. Stark, you're our host and I want to be polite to you. But the only psychological changes, for lack of a better term, that any descendant of our creator has ever implemented were how Rabbit, the Jon, and myself were made permanently unable to serve in armed combat ever again, and when Peter VI uploaded musical abilities into Hatchworth so he could replace the Jon in our act when the Jon decided he wanted to explore the multiverse. Both were for our benefit and with our permission. You don't forcibly try to change individuals you care about even if you think it'll do them good."

Tony had that uncomfortable feeling of being called out well and accurately. After a pause, he said, "You look like you're pretty much done. Let's see how they're doing."

"Good idea," said the Spine. "Let me put on my suit and hat first, though; if I'm not in them Rabbit might think we're at war again."


	3. Chapter 3

Tony pulled a chair over close enough to see Six working while still maintaining a safe distance just in case any welding was necessary. The Spine approached the table, a hat with a pair of goggles slung around it in his hands. "Hey, Rabbit," he said gently, "I've got your hat right here and once you're fixed up you can put it on again."

"Thanks, bro," Rabbit said, chipper as anything, but then his eyes widened and a tremor came into his voice. "Why can't - whhy cccccan't I move mmy head?"

Six looked up from his focus on the bot's torso, where he'd opened up the chest plate and was ambidextrously wielding tools like he was born to it - well, Tony supposed he was. Howard Stark had been enough to live up to. He couldn't imagine having five ancestors all named Tony and be stuck maintaining their creations as first priority before making anything new of his own. The latest Walter's hair was even wilder than before but he sounded calm enough. "Your head and neck are in a brace in case of glitches or spasms. I'm sorry you have to be online the whole time I'm doing this since part of the problem is your neural circuits misfiring. Can you tell me what year it is?"

"Have you been time-traveling or something, Petes? Go check a newspaper." When Tony stifled a laugh at that Rabbit came close to freaking out again. "Who's that? Is there someone over there?"

"He's another engineer working with the Walters and he's just observing for now," the Spine soothed.

"Which Peter Walter am I?" Six pressed on, doing something that made blue sparks fly for a few seconds but entirely unfazed by the phenomenon.

"If you're gonna wear a mask it's gonna be tough for anyone to tell which one you are. Honestly. It's like I'm the only one who knows what's going on around here. Where's Three, the Spine? You need to tell him I can't watch Howdy Doody with him if I'm stuck here long."

"1950's," Six muttered. "I don't think that's supposed to be - ow!"

Tony wasn't used to seeing a roboticist deal with a minor fingertip burn by holding out the hand for one of his undamaged robots to grasp between cold palms, though it was true Six couldn't put it in his mouth and he seemed reluctant to get up in search of any other remedy. The Spine treated this as a mundane occurrence. "Rabbit, there's something I need to tell you..."

Rabbit gasped. "Oh dear lord, I need to tell Wanda! Does Wanda know? Third said Two and Guy didn't make it and he had to power me down again because he'd messed up one of my gyros and oh no, the Spine, they haven't even had any kids yet and...wait you're not Third which one are you???"

The Spine took a twitching copper hand in one of his. "It's going to be okay."

"Are they going to put me in the vault too?" Rabbit asked, plaintive enough to make Tony way more choked up than he thought he could be, especially since he was missing a lot of the references. 

"Nobody's in the vault," Six said. "Not anymore. Rabbit, Rabbit don't - I need you to try and stop shuddering Rabbit, okay? I don't want to mess up this bit."

"I'm tttttttrying..."

The Spine made a throat-clearing noise that must have been for dramatic effect. "Let's practice 'Brass Goggles'. If you remember it."

"Don't be a dumbins," Rabbit retorted, rallying.

"Prove me wrong, then. I'm sure Peter would be good enough to participate in the chorus. Maybe even Tony."

Tony was about to protest but the Spine shot him A Look that made him think of Pepper at her most determined.

Rabbit blinked a few times and then began, "Come with me and I'll show you how to be a metal man, when the gears are turning and the fires are burning...when the world ticks around you, voices tocking all the time, and you live for sleeping you've never slept because you cannot sleep...Colonel Walter was shocked when he heard from the Nile, copper African elephants turning hostile..."

Even terrified and unaccompanied, the automaton sounded pretty damn good, and it seemed to help him focus and still his chassis. The Spine added a whole other level of rich harmony when he joined in. "So he built these wonderful automaton blokes and a very big steam-powered giraffe what smokes...now the war is past and over, we're left to sit and wonder: what is life? And what is real? And why do living things need feelings?"

Six didn't show any embarrassment at going along with the "La da da da da" portion, and the Spine kept giving Tony Looks until Tony caved. He was more into heavy metal than whatever genre these guys did. Though if you were going to be literal about it they were musicians made out of really heavy metal. Also, was he imagining it or was JARVIS also pitching in with a better sense of key than Tony himself ever had possessed by the end of the song?

Talking and singing helped guide Rabbit through the next two hours, The Spine fetching water for himself and his "brother" at regular intervals and Tony discreetly ordering pizza to heat up when Six reached a point where things were stable enough for him to be persuaded to take a break. He also texted Bruce: "You need to get here soon, buddy, it's unreal. And tuneful."


End file.
